Check out my new signature and avatar.

Hey guys I just produced my first signature and avatar from scratch... with only two hours of messing with Adobe Photoshope CS2--never have I ever used another version.. so this is my first look at what Adobe can do.

I first started with a 500 x 150 black background banner.

I then added two types of graphic brushes.. one with abstract images and the other one with hi-tek images..

I then blended three images and made them burn style... faded them a little.. so you guys don't see them.. but (they are there)... And then added my text: Jay-Jay.

I still don't know how to create borders.. and also.. I quite don't know how to cut out a picture of a person.. so they can only be presented on the background I make.. Hope I can learn soon...

Let me know some feedback..

pretty kl. i cant quite mak it out but nice job anyways

to make a border, you do it with the marquee tool and then add a stroke.. it would look like this:

hey the border does add an effect, it lks kl.

couldn you make the border have more of an impact?

Wat did u use a grunge effect?

nope show me?

What I usually do to make it look much better is make a stroke, save it. Open it, make another stroke(make that stroke at 35% opacity)then save it, open it again, make another stroke(size 1) and make it blakc, and your done!
Its that simple! Much easier than dofing marquees

to make a border, you do it with the marquee tool and then add a stroke.. it would look like this:

that looks like what I want to do.. any chance to make a step by step tutorial on how you just did that???

Wat did u use a grunge effect?

Not sure if you are asking me? But yeah man! That is what I used for one of the brush effects to create the background.

Ok, here's how you do it. With the little control panel with all of the things that you can click on, click the sqare marquee tool. (Which is the top one farthest left). Then, highlight your whole image so that there is a glowing boarder around it. After that, go to edit, click on stroke, and then add what you want in. I usually use 1-2 pixels, and white or black. Then click ok, and click outside of your banner. Your banner should now have a border around it. To add another one, just follow the same steps, but instead of highlighting the whole signature, only highlight where you want the border to show! Hope that helps!

It took me a while first.. because I was working with the banner I was creating step by step.. but I later figured it out that I guess I must save the image to JPEG or other format.. then be able to do the Marquee and Stroke trick.. am I right?

I was able to do this.. thanks man! YOU DA MAN!!

Now how do I add a person on my banner.. but I don't want the original background to appear? I just want to use the background I made?

Ok. Open a new document and paste your picture in there. You might have to scale your picture down, so go to image, and then to image size. Next, once you have your image the size you want it, on the toolbar, hit the eraser, the slice tool, or one that looks like a magic wand. With any of those, cut out your picture. Once your picture is cut out, use a marquee tool and get a flashing border around the image that you want to add in your signature. Go to edit, copy and then open your signature. Once there, hit edit, paste, and then from there, you can move the picture around and add effects. Man this sounds confusing? Hope this helps!